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00:00On a river in the American Pacific Northwest, the yearly salmon run has collided with a
00:24modern world.
00:46This floodplain used to be easy passage for fish on a mission, but a road has turned it
00:55into a deadly gamble.
01:03The salmon must take their chances to reach their spawning grounds upstream.
01:15They are driven by an overwhelming instinct to swim against the current, so they've just
01:24gotta go.
01:51And where one succeeds, others can too.
02:21Millions of migrating salmon must today run a treacherous gauntlet.
02:52From the open ocean, inland, past tarmac, concrete, and steel.
03:09These determined travelers will stop at nothing to reach their goal.
03:18If they succeed, their migration will bring a pulse of vital nutrients in their bodies
03:26that nourishes a vast forest network that spans the Pacific Northwest.
03:41To stay healthy, this forest, and everything that depends on it, needs its fish.
03:56And these heroic salmon are just one in a cast of incredible creatures all over the
04:04world, whose battles to survive, adapt, and reproduce also have the power to help nurse
04:19our ailing planet back to health.
04:25They are our most powerful allies on the Earth's road to recovery.
04:33While they fight for their futures, they are, in fact, fighting for ours.
05:03Humans, we've done some strange things to this planet.
05:15By attempting to build our dream homes, we've created a confusing world for the neighbors.
05:30Wherever we've spread, the dangers we've introduced are causing havoc.
05:42But one creature has been preparing for the worst his entire life.
05:54Conquered down in his Florida bunker, the ultimate doomsday prepper.
06:05Inside a rock-hard shell, six feet underground, now that's how you stay safe.
06:22But even a recluse needs to eat.
06:29For a gopher tortoise, leaving your burrow may well be daunting.
06:37But to find fresh shoots, he needs to come out of his shell and out of his comfort zone.
06:51Come on, how scary can it be?
06:58Here goes nothing.
07:14The neighbors seem pretty harmless.
07:19All busy keeping Florida's longleaf pine forest in tip-top condition.
07:30Pollinators, tree planters, even pest controllers.
07:47But it's best to give some a wide berth.
08:04For our play-it-safe tortoise, coming out of his shell seems to have paid off.
08:14With a midsummer feast.
08:21But he can't let his guard down.
08:29Because high summer is also wildfire season.
08:39It's nature's way of making space for new life to grow.
08:51If he can't get back to his burrow, he'll be cooked in his own shell.
09:00Time to put the pedal to the metal.
09:19Burning at over 600 degrees, the fire claims an acre every 10 seconds.
10:00Amazingly, the tortoise has survived.
10:18But how?
10:22He didn't make it home.
10:26Fire's dug safety bunkers all over this forest.
10:32And his doomsday prepping hasn't just saved his own skin.
10:40Over 300 different species seek shelter from summer wildfires in the burrows of gopher tortoises.
10:57He has saved his neighbors.
11:01And as each animal plays its own role in the forest, together they'll help their home to recover.
11:15We will increasingly rely on heroes like him as the web of life on which we all depend is threatened from all sides.
11:31In 2020, Australia suffered its worst ever bushfire season.
11:43One-fifth of all its forests turned to ash.
11:50Three billion animals killed or harmed.
11:57But there may yet be a way to heal this broken land.
12:09A flying fox descends on downtown Sydney with thousands of other fruit bats.
12:22Her forest destroyed, these refugees are trying to survive in a new home.
12:32This world is like no forest she's ever seen.
12:50A canopy of concrete.
12:56Electric branches.
13:00Razor blade undergrowth.
13:04Nothing in 50 million years of evolution has prepared her for this.
13:21But she's learning fast, and pinpoint night vision helps her find food, even in the heart of the city.
13:40She must eat her fill before dawn.
13:48Because after the night shift, she's got a day job to clock onto.
14:01In a park nearby, what used to be a rest stop for migrating bats has now become a permanent roost.
14:13Hiding something truly precious.
14:17Her hungry baby, waiting for his morning milk.
14:40But the day shift brings its own challenge.
14:46Heat.
14:52Sydney's summers now regularly top 110 degrees.
15:00Far hotter than shaded forests.
15:05And deadly for young bats.
15:17But mum has some neat tricks up her sleeve.
15:23Blood flows through the thin skin of her wings, so she can try to cool down.
15:33And she can fan her pup.
15:39But the temperature is still rising.
15:46He's in trouble.
15:50She must find a way to cool him down.
16:05There's one thing left to try.
16:11Water.
16:21It calls for a daredevil descent.
16:29The airspace is crowded.
16:35With fierce competition.
16:40But it's nothing she can't handle.
16:57A single dip soaks her fur.
17:04Enough water to cool her pup.
17:08With a soggy, life-saving embrace.
17:17Whatever this hostile place throws at her, she will do her best to find a way.
17:31And there's more than just her baby's survival at stake.
17:38Because fruit bats have the power to shape the world around them.
17:46Amazingly, each flying fox can pollinate 50 different species of tree.
17:56And spread thousands of seeds in a single night.
18:03Even here, in Sydney's parks, there are signs that they are nursing nature back to health.
18:20Only time if these bats can return to their wilderness home.
18:27This vast tree planting air force could help regrow their lost forest anew.
18:49The healthier the Earth's wild places, the harder they work to the benefit of us all.
19:02Protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink.
19:13The future health of our entire planet may rest with nature's last great strongholds.
19:22And their most important inhabitants.
19:31This grandmother has a growing family to support.
19:39A free new baby, a blessing.
19:43But also another mouth to feed.
19:50Forest elephants have demanding nutritional needs.
19:56And there's only so much grass you can stomach.
20:02So it's just as well she has Africa's biggest drugstore right on her doorstep.
20:10The Congo rainforest.
20:21Bulldozing their way through the dense undergrowth is slow going.
20:29But there's a quicker way.
20:33A path.
20:38Generations of her ancestors have walked these same routes.
20:45Creating thousands of miles of elephant-sized corridors.
20:53Making it far easier to browse the aisles.
21:01And this path leads to a forest pharmacy.
21:11The clay is rich in salts and minerals.
21:20That help them survive the sweltering heat.
21:26Like an isotonic mud drink.
21:34But to grow big and strong, this family needs fresh vitamins.
21:41This grandmother knows every trick in the book to find them.
21:50Elephants can hear some of the lowest frequencies of any animal.
22:03They even use the sensitive pads of their feet to pick up the faintest of tremors.
22:12And that is the sound of fresh fruit hitting the shop floor.
22:31Grandma has a bearing.
22:35And she knows the quickest route there.
22:49And in their quest for a healthy diet, wherever this family roams,
22:55they also boost the forest's health.
23:04Each elephant spreads over 200 pounds of mineral-rich compost.
23:13And weeds out several miles of choking undergrowth every single day.
23:29Which gives the forest's slow-growing saplings the chance they need to transform into giants.
24:00Giants with the power to help save us all.
24:10As humans drive up the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere,
24:15this mighty elephant-grown tree is drawing it down.
24:23It then performs one of nature's greatest magic tricks.
24:31Transforming carbon dioxide into sugars through the power of sunlight on its leaves.
24:41Locking planet-warming carbon safely away into its branches, trunk, and roots.
24:54The work of gardening elephants allows Africa's tropical trees
24:59to draw down an extra billion tons of carbon every single year.
25:14These giants could help us turn the tide on rising carbon dioxide levels.
25:24And actually fight climate change.
25:33While grandma simply searches for what she needs to keep her family healthy.
25:48But in the last 30 years, we have lost three quarters of Africa's forest elephants to poaching.
26:00With so little of our planet's wilderness still intact, we need its wildlife now more than ever.
26:11Nature's greatest healers are disappearing on our watch.
26:22Species that do most for our planet's health are amongst those most at risk of extinction.
26:34And as everything is connected through the vast web of life, their fate could soon become ours.
26:49But what if we could help some of these vital animals to rise again?
27:05Saiga antelope.
27:12They once roamed the steppe from Europe to China in their millions.
27:21Grazing and spreading seeds, these nomads maintain the world's biggest grassland for millennia.
27:34Until the 1990s, when rampant poaching devastated their herds.
27:46Their numbers fell faster than any mammals in history.
27:52And as the grazers disappeared, so too did the grasslands that depended on them.
28:02But a decade later, saiga hunting was banned throughout their range.
28:12The future of the steppe rested on whether a few survivors could come back from the brink.
28:27A new era was dawning.
28:36A new hope.
28:45And one becomes three.
28:53Tomorrow's grazers, ready to roam.
29:09And thankfully, they are not alone.
29:15Other saiga mothers have gathered at the nursery grounds.
29:21When they're old, they give birth to twins, and even triplets.
29:32So with each yearly baby boom, the herds nearly double in size.
29:41In just 20 years, a few thousand survivors have become a force a million strong.
29:51This new generation is ready to reclaim their ancestral home.
30:00Marching for thousands of miles every year.
30:11Breathing life into the grassland wherever they step.
30:17And securing the future of the steppe for everyone who lives here.
30:47Scientists have calculated that supporting the return of just 20 large mammal species
31:02could help revive nearly a quarter of all the land on Earth.
31:18So today, a movement is gathering pace across more than 70 countries worldwide.
31:27To hand damaged landscapes back to their natural caretakers.
31:33In a process called rewilding.
31:40In Argentina's Iberá wetlands, over a million acres of swamps, forests and grasslands
31:48once thronged with over 4,000 species.
31:54But centuries of cattle ranching drove out the wildlife,
32:00leaving this rich tapestry at risk of collapse.
32:07Until the turn of the millennium, when work began to hand this land back to nature.
32:21But now, one species is standing in the way of complete recovery.
32:28With the cattle gone, clans of Capibar are filling the vacuum.
32:41Hundred pound rodents mowing down any new sheets that try to grow.
32:47Which means Iberá's recovery has hit the skids.
32:56Not that these giant guinea pigs seem worried.
33:02They're so laid back, they're horizontal.
33:09But all that is about to change.
33:24This pen holds one of South America's most feared predators.
33:30Hunted out here over 70 years ago,
33:37this rescued jaguar could solve the Capibara conundrum.
33:48While her challenge is feeding her twin daughters.
33:55Everything now hinges on whether this killer can learn to hunt
34:03on the other side of the fence.
34:25The first free-roaming jaguars to set foot here since the 1950s.
34:44It's all theirs for the taking.
34:50Let's tune in to her killer instinct.
35:10Stealth mode.
35:21She's got it.
35:32Keep low.
35:38Get close.
36:09Then wait for your moment.
36:15She's got it.
36:37These Capibara have only ever danced to their own tune.
36:43Until now.
37:14Her daughters witness a master class and share the spoils.
37:23They too will become agents of change.
37:29Unlocking the full potential of this vast landscape.
37:36This family of assassins will now bring fear wherever they tread.
37:44The Capibara will keep to the waterways where they feel safer.
38:15Keeping grazers on the move gives more plants a chance to recover.
38:22So pockets of new habitat can emerge.
38:29And even more species can return to this old cattle ranch.
38:36Building their own connections.
38:42Making it more resilient to change.
38:51Ibarra's restored webs of life will help it endure long into the future.
39:05Thanks to the return of one missing piece of the puzzle.
39:15Empowering nature's healers can protect us from many of the perils of a changing planet.
39:25Wildflower meadows boost bee populations.
39:32Helping secure a quarter of our food supplies from increasingly unpredictable seasons.
39:42Protecting sea otters revives kelp forests.
39:49Which shield coastlines from increasingly stormy seas.
39:56And rising whale numbers fertilize the oceans.
40:04Helping to feed blooms of plankton that capture 10 billion tons of carbon every year.
40:15As much as all our rainforests combined.
40:22When we help nature, nature helps us.
40:29The signs of a hopeful recovery are there to see.
40:38Across Washington state, the paths of the mighty Salmon Run are blocked.
40:45By more than 10,000 man-made obstacles.
40:52Numbers of some salmon species have crashed by up to 95%.
41:04But as we begin to see the bigger picture.
41:11Today, on one river, things are about to change.
41:21The Salmon Run
41:52A campaign to tear down old dams is transforming waterways across North America.
42:01So far, over 1,900 have been dismantled.
42:08Thousands of miles of rivers can once again run free.
42:15So too can their salmon.
42:32Finally, they can reach their ancestral spawning grounds.
42:45As they lay their eggs in the cool, shaded streams.
42:54Their journey is complete.
43:01But their legacy will endure.
43:08An entire generation of salmon give up their bodies.
43:18And their death pumps life back into the forest.
43:38This vast transfer of nutrients from ocean to land,
43:45from one life to the next, is the forest's lifeblood.
43:55Providing up to 80% of the nitrogen it needs to grow.
44:08The salmon's offspring will travel downstream.
44:17To start their cycle anew.
44:23With our help, their numbers could flourish again.
44:29Sustaining an entire web of connections.
44:36To sea.
44:43Bringing new hope for everyone that relies on them.
44:58Nature can help heal our world.
45:06If we just give it a chance.
45:13Every living being is an invaluable link in the web of life.
45:21On which, ultimately, we all depend.
45:28In our connected world, every action has consequences.
45:37And the choices we make really matter.
45:44Armed with new knowledge, we can take steps to help nature nurse our planet back to health.
45:57The time to act is now.
46:08Because it's no longer just a case of whether we can still save nature,
46:15but whether nature can still save us.
48:27www.nasa.gov
48:31NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
48:57NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
49:27NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology